And they're all made of ticky tacky...

You know, I've been thinking today about the nature of blogging. Generally, I avoid any sort of meta actions, with the general belief that if you're thinking too hard about doing it, you're not doing it. Now before you get all up in arms about how things must be considered for what they are to even know what they are, I will acknowledge that I believe in studying the things that I do. I love the craft of writing, the art of fiction, whatever you will call it. I love those silly little books with ridiculous writing exercises that are made just to further the craft. I love reading what other people have to write and seeing if I can apply any of that to my writing. Yadda yadda yadda.

What I do not like is sitting down and treating the things that I personally do as if they are worthy of being put on the slide of a microscope and dissected with minds that have better things to do. My own mind included. I do not take myself too seriously (I hope), I certainly don't take this blog very seriously, and in general, I like to let life come at me as it will.

But recently I've been thinking. What makes me even write this blog? And why does it seem like compared with the things I used to write, everything has gone into the shitter?

I think a lot of this has to do with my passion for writing and, quite frankly, my passion for romance. When I look at the blog I had toward the end of my highschool years, the writing was callow and sometimes extremely rude, but it was funny. My words had a punch, enough so that Caroline used to share it with her co-workers at the Governor's office. I was, in my own tiny little insignificant readership, an entertainment.

These days my blog has to do mostly with myself. But it's not even funny! Has all the humor left my life? I like to think not. I mean, honestly, if I can't laugh at myself, I'll have nobody else who's nearly as ridiculous at whom I might laugh. So. Why aren't I laughing?

I don't quite know. This part, I think has to do with my writing skill. I used to write daily, if not on the blog, on pieces of loose leaf paper tucked into an old maroon folder that I had previously used for math homework (what a long life that folder lived). These days I write far too little and perhaps this meager blog is too late. I need to have some passion for my writing, I suppose, but right now... it's not there. I thought the blog would foster it, but sometimes I just look at the blank screen and my mind gets even more skittish than it was before.

Perhaps, I need to get back to the basics (look at the cliches I write in these days! Oy va freaking voy!) and start writing again on paper. When I have that down, I'll be a better blogger? We'll see.

I think maybe it's much to do with the purpose I hold these days. In writing this blog, I have no real purpose. Back then I had a very clear one. Mostly, it was to make Max like me. Yes, I agree, this is a terrible reason to have a blog. But honestly, reading each others blogs was our sort of courtship (along with text messaging). This may have had a monumental effect on the eventual dissolution of our relationship. Text messaging is great, lengthy discourses on life and love and everything in between are great, but there's a certain point to which you need to learn something other than the insides of somebody's mind.

What somebody thinks is one thing, what they do is more often than not something different. Perhaps not entirely different, I think that as a whole current generations are obsessively intent on remaining "true" to themselves. But that doesn't mean that we don't all suffer lapses (suffer could be a harsh word here... it's not always wrong to go against our gut feeling). It also doesn't mean that knowing somebody's brain, picking apart their every thought, will make you compatible.

How do they walk? How do they talk? How do they treat waitresses? What do they wear? Do you like their friends? Do they like your friends? Do they have any weird eating habits that make them prone to outrageous bouts of halitosis? Will it bother them if your room isn't tidy? Do they clean the hair out of the drain when they are finished using the shower? What kind of deodorant do they use and does this make them smell good or is the scent too strong or does it still leave them with pit stains when they've got on a blue and white striped oxford?

Dear readership, be aware that these specifics aren't necessarily ones that Max and I struggled with. But there are specifics that can't be learned. And I thought, at that time, that learning all these specifics through the internet was possible. It's not. It's really not. I don't care if somebody says "I use right guard plus with the aloe strip in the middle that Bam Margera advertised a few years ago." You still don't know what that means!

Mark told me the other day that I am the most [expletive] annoying, nosy thing. I think this is a little inaccurate, but mostly a lot misunderstood. I think that in some way, lacking every detail in every relationship I've had in the past has made me ravenous for them now. I ask a million questions, I expect them to be answered. But mostly I look around. I notice your prescription or your pictures or your blanket or your toothpaste. It's not a good thing, but I don't think it's so bad, either.

"I like to be vague," Moe said as we were walking the other day. It came shortly after him saying, "Jesus Christ! Mark was right! You are annoying."

I don't mean to be annoying bloggership. Maybe I should stop writing about me and what I do and start writing about the things I observe. But then if I do that, would it be intrusive upon those whom I observe? Should I start writing fake names. Moe will become Gilles or Laurie will become Kristy (she would never be a Kristy)... I don't think that's quite life. But parts of me worry that writing beyond the trivialities of life will be too much for those whom I write about (here you can thank Bloggergate 2005. Anybody who's been reading my blog for these past three years, I laud you in ways I can't express over this computer). I suppose I could write observations about people I don't know, but then I'd be so limited. It's like reading a blog to know somebody, you don't know them unless you know them.

...This is going nowhere. But does anybody feel me?